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Life after Penn

It has been a while since my last post on here, the past several weeks have been a bit hectic and I have not taken the time out to update this blog, so with that, this post will be a bit longer than normal to summarize the past month or so.

Personal Updates

For my personal updates, I think it will be best to divide them into different sections as the past few weeks have covered a lot of ground in my life and I do not want to miss anything important.

Football

Football-wise, we finished up our season against Penn and won by a pretty decent margin. This allowed us to secure a piece of the Ivy League title, shared with Dartmouth who also had one loss this season. With us beating both Harvard and Yale this year, we also had a bonfire the Sunday after the Penn game which was a great celebration that friends and family were able to enjoy. Coming to the end of my season meant that I had a decision to make as far as where I am going from here. I took a week or two to think about it but ultimately decided that I would end my football journey here. There are a number of reasons that this was my decision, mainly coming down to my personal feelings, but my coach made a good point when talking to him in our post-season meeting. My football career has spanned over half of my life, and it is not the worst thing in the world for it to end on such a high note of having won two of thirteen total championships for Princeton football. It really helped to make the year off worth it from a football perspective and has left me with a ton of great memories. While I definitely could have tried to pursue playing at the next level, it did not feel right to me at the time, and since I was not 100% in, it made more sense to be out. I am now on the path to becoming a normal guy, well at least as normal as you could be at 6'7 with red hair, which I guess is not so bad.

Personal

A personal section within the personal updates section, real creative. Now that football has come to a close, I have to figure out what to do with an extra 30 or so hours a week of free time. Thus far, I have been crafting a workout and diet plan to help me lose weight, and as of the date of this post, I am down about 25 lbs or so from the end of my season, with the plan to lose another 25 or so. This plan consists of a lot of research and communication between friends, coaches, and athletic medicine staff which has been very interesting. I would really love to come back from winter break around my goal weight, which I think will be possible based on my progress so far. Aside from physical wellness, I also want to get back into reading and learning about things for fun, and I have had a number of books downloaded on my phone that I have not had the time to get into this semester. I am hoping to add a decent chunk of books to my list over these next few weeks when I am home and no longer have school obligations. Even though the end of the year is pretty arbitrary, I feel like I will be entering 2022 as a very different person than I have been for the past decade or so. For the first time in a long time, I will not have to worry about keeping on weight or answering to coaches/a schedule that is given to me. I am excited to see how I will respond to these new challenges. 

School

I am writing this post the day after my last final, which is definitely crazy to think how fast the first semester flew by. After four and a half years, I only have one semester left of college which will consist of two courses and a thesis. I am excited about my classes this spring, and I am happy with how my classes this fall ended up. I think I ended all of my classes in a pretty good place, and this year more than years in the past I really have had a different attitude towards schoolwork and it has paid off. I am taking classes that are interesting and challenging, and I have been engaged with the material which has made me better off in a number of areas in my life. Different than in the past, I feel like all of the classes I took this semester helped to change the course of my life for the better, even if it was in minute ways. While I still have my behemoth of a thesis to tackle over winter break and when I come back in the spring, I am hopeful that with all of my newfound time I will be able to finish it early. 

Work

Last but not least comes the talk of finding a job. I have yet to line up anything for after graduation, but I am hopeful that the experience I gained last year, and all of the knowledge that I have accrued will make me a hirable candidate. My plan over the next few days/weeks is to start reaching out to alumni and applying for jobs more seriously since I will have more time. During my season it was a bit chaotic having to deal with football, school, and club life, so over the next few months I will not have football, I will have much more limited school work, and also will pass on the presidency to someone new which should allow me to dedicate time and energy into finding a job and crafting a plan for after graduation. 

Books/Podcasts

This is hopefully the last post for a while where I do not have any book updates. I have been able to catch up and actually get ahead on the podcasts that I have been listening to consistently which has allowed me to listen to more episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast and also relisten to some of the ones I enjoyed in the past. As I am thinking about building a plan for weightloss and optimizing my training and general wellness, I am trying to learn the science behind different bodily processes, and this podcast has been a huge help for resources and advice. As I feel that I am learning and bettering myself by listening to these podcasts, I feel that I will continue to listen to them moving forward. The books that I have in the pipeline are definitely more finance oriented as they are old suggestions from one of these podcasts, but I think that I will learn a lot from them. 

Gratitude

For this week's gratitude post I want to say how thankful I am for my physical health. As I am no longer playing a high contact sport, I doubt that I will continue to have physical well-being as top of mind as it has been throughout my season. That being said, last year at this time I was still recovering from dislocating my elbow in my last game, and if I had done that this year I would be pretty devastated. Luckily, I was able to make it out of this season relatively unscathed, and it has helped me to be able to jump into workouts and losing weight after a short rest period. This has been really rewarding and exciting as I am able to run, walk, bike, swim, lift, and more without any lingering pain or injury. I am excited for how my body will continue to change and develop over the coming weeks and months as I continue to train and alter my diet and daily habits to orient myself towards my goals, and ideally my body will remain healthy throughout this journey.

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